David

It was the first night of church camp, and I was up late talking with a roommate I had just met. She was telling me about her struggles with depression, how she had a history of self-injury, and how she had even come close to actually killing herself. She looked mostly at the floor, but occasionally at me out of the corner of her eye, and I knew I needed to say something to let her know I wasn't troubled by her. 

We were both teenagers, both in our awkward years, and both knew, apparently, some of the heavy darkness that dwells in this broken world. I stuttered out a few encouraging words, about how obviously God had a plan for her life and it was good to see her coming through on this side of it. I assured her that I didn't think she was weird, and I wasn't scared of her. Then, I told her part of my own story, which included a season living in locked facilities with other young persons who had troubles similar to hers. I was perfectly comfortable with her. 

But her eyes got as big as saucers. 

The next day, she moved out of our shared room and never came back. 

Later that night, my group leader - David - pulled me aside and told me that my roommate had, indeed, moved out. The things I had shared had scared her, and she didn't feel safe sharing a space with me. He told me how inappropriate it was to share my story with her and that if it was something I needed to talk about, he was always there to listen (even though David and I had just met the day before, as well). 

It honestly baffled my mind. I couldn't understand how saying, "I can relate, and I know stories like yours because I've been in dark places with them" to someone who just told me she'd tried to kill herself made me the threat. I believe so much that God has given us our stories for a reason and that we have no reason to be ashamed in sharing them and yet, here I was - ashamed. Feeling like I'd done something wrong. 

I agreed to talk to David, which is how we ended up sitting at a picnic table out behind the dorms as the sun was setting in the summer sky. I was trying to explain to him the story she'd told me, why I had shared what I had shared, what it means to me to have that story to share, what my goal was in choosing my words carefully, all of that. I was, for sure, trying to defend myself. 

But the more I talked to David, the more he started to ask questions, and the more I realized that maybe I carried more shame with me than I thought I did. I started to buffer a little bit, to deflect. I caught my own eyes gazing downward until, at last, trapped in the pain and the hurt and the darkness of my own story, my eyes were locked to the ground, barely able to make out the dirt in the darkness. 

It was now very late into the night. 

Then, David told me to look at him. He didn't demand it. He didn't ask. Somewhere in between. He encouraged me to look at him, and he waited until I could bring my tear-stained eyes just a little bit upward and almost meet his. Then, he said eight words I have not forgotten since that night: 

"Listen, God wants to bless your face off." 

He already knew that, he said, just from the few short interactions we'd had in our small group together. He knew that from the way that I talked about my story. He knew that from the heart from which I had reached out to my roommate, even if my execution wasn't as spectacular as I thought it would be. David's simple, but enthusiastic and absolutely confident, words did for me what I had been hoping my words would have done for my roommate - and all because he had made the space for us to have a real conversation in which he had been really listening. 

It is because of talks like the one I had with David that I have worked to become a listener. It's because of the slightly-damp seat at an overheated picnic table in the dusk of summer that I have worked to make a place for anyone, anywhere. It is because of being heard that I have started to encourage others to speak.

If you need a place to talk, I've got one for you. 

And, for what it's worth, David was right - God has been blessing my face off. 

But maybe the most important word of his sentence was the first one: listen.